30frames

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Viral Video re-infection

Make sure you read the previousposts on viral videos or you will be wondering why I am starting with the number four.

Once again, I am back to pontificate on why I think the whole “viral video” thing is such a non-factor in the world of music videos. There is some reasonable debate over what is and isn't a viral video. I would probably categorize a video as viral if it is getting passed around for it's visual impact, humor, shock value, and so on. "Hey, check out the new video from the band I like, Silversun Pickups" would not really be a viral thing in my book. Drop a comment if you disagree.

What I mean by “non-factor”Before you go on about how wrong I am and how I should look at OkGo – please read the previous post. I like OkGo. They seem like fun. Their videos were cool and took lots of dedication – but so f*%&ing-what. The point of a music video is to get people to buy your record and those videos, despite massive hype in all kinds of mainstream media, did not do the job. As Xzibit would say – “Check the soundscan.”

But attention CAN lead to sales, right? Sure, but if the avalanche (based on indie music scale) of attention the treadmill dudes got won’t do it, nothing your band can come up with will. Big time advertisers go viral to help out wacky sports related comedy films and bite-sized cars – but for those products the, viral video is a tiny, tiny part of the marketing. For most musical artists, the music video (viral or not) might be the whole marketing campaign.

And attention, in and of itself, is not success (or money or career). Just “getting attention” is what the tap-dancing homeless guy does on the street corner or the self-destructive goth girl at your high school that blew everyone and then realized maybe she didn’t want that kind of attention. Music videos have to turn attention into a purchase – and viral videos do that about as well as the slutty girl turned a BJ into a relationship.

Reason #4 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:Viral videos make the wrong kind of impression.The thing that draws us to watch viral videos is that the images stand out. They are visual jokes or unexpected bursts of violence/sex that entertain us for a moment – then are gone. We like them, but we don’t love them. And breaking out the credit card takes love.

Some real famous YouToogle clips are the mentos experiment guys and the trampoline bear. Most everyone has seen these clips. Ask people on the street and they will nod in acknowledgement when you say “diet coke and mentos.” What people DON’T want is to know more about the breath-mint-ologists or hear what kind of songs the tranquilized bear might have recorded on Garage Band.The connection viral video watchers have with a high-speed freeway chase or a father getting blasted in the nuts by his oblivious child is very different from the kind of connection music fans have with their favorite bands. In fact, I would say that the kind of viral attention drawn by water-skiing squirrel actually works against the viewer taking anything to do with that video seriously.

The term is “a mile wide, but an inch deep.” Interest in viral videos is just that – a mile wide and an inch deep. Everyone wants to watch the 20 second trampoline bear video clip, no one wants to buy the trampoline bear DVD.

Not only is the viral video impression a shallow one – I believe it makes the artist come across as cheap and disposable. If I can get this for free at any point in time by typing “okgo treadmill” into a web-browser, why should I pay real money for it? What makes this something to own rather than something that lives on the web I can call up whenever I feel like it?

In conclusion, viral video might make some kind of impression – but it is not the kind of attention you want. Unless you are still rocking the black lip-stick and hanging around under the bleachers after practice.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Mystery Artist 4.0 - Live Free or Die Anonymous

The Mystery Artist is back, and this time they are multi-talented - fucking shit up as much behind the cameras as in front of it. As always, MA is not Elvis, but that doesn’t mean bedazzled jumpsuits aren’t involved.

MA is a big time mover and shaker – controlling careers and attracting as much attention as the artists who are being sold. Mystery Artist has their own recording career as well, and all the requisite trappings that go with that. But this story is about the behind the scenes “flavor” of MA.

The call goes out for a video for a new artist – signed to the label partially controlled by MA. Several big time directors write on the job, but their concepts end up as budgets too rich for the labels blood. So the video goes out again, this time to younger, hungrier directors. It is also possible that the established video pros kept their budgets real high to factor in the annoyance that they knew would come at the hands of MA, especially on a low-budget, one-day shoot.

The job for the baby artist seems ready to go to one director – but now the budget needs to get whittled down. The label rep was dealing with the prod co and the director – working out the details bit by bit. This is standard procedure, but this budget-trimming job was extra difficult. Every once in a while, the label would suddenly change course – ask for a different set-up within the video, or flipping some other detail that everyone thought was already locked down. It was clear that this was the hand of MA "helping out" and not the harried label commissioner.

The production lost money out of the art department budget. They committed to shooting less film. Mark-ups and profit were negotiated away. All the things that go on in the budget shaving process. Finally, the commissioner and the production team came to an agreement and contracts were signed on the lean and mean budget. The job was finally a go.

The shoot was set for NYC – another “must have” that added to the cost – and as the producer and director traveled to the city, things changed. MA started calling up everyone and asking where all his special riders were. The shoot was located less than ten NYC blocks from the offices of MA’s label – but MA was demanding there be a special RV on the set for their personal use. Rather than take a seven-minute limo ride from the office (where I assume MA has all their luxuries) MA wanted all the standard things that big stars want in their own RV. There was no “extra” cash lying around for MA’s very specific demands of three cases of this kind of imported water and that many bottles of chilled champagne.

Oh, and did I mention that MA is not even in the video. MA does not sing a verse or even make a cameo in the clip. MA just had to be on set to monitor things and MA needed the luxury RV. The commissioner signs an overage to cover these vanity costs – and the shoot hasn’t even begun.

The day of the shoot, things are going okay. Running a bit behind as always but the director and producer are doing their best. By lunch, MA has still not arrived and the vanity RV sits empty burning money as the generator runs and the security stands by to protect the six(6) new, white towels inside.Finally MA arrives and wants to see all the footage that has been shot. MA watches the playback of the morning’s shoot – delaying the afternoon’s activity. MA demands some wardrobe changes for the real artist in the video – over-ruling the stylist and the artist themselves. The shoot crawls along – with MA an impediment the whole way. The director and producer bite their tongues - this is standard procedure for MA.

Now it is time for the producer to call a wrap on the one-day shoot. It is well after midnight on a dark, NY street and they got almost all the footage they wanted for the day. It wasn’t perfect, but everybody seemed happy. Except MA.

MA wants to keep shooting. The label commissioner tells MA that they simply cannot go over budget. MA says they can go over some, and the commissioner hems and haws – knowing that MA’s super-RV has already blown all their "some" money. The producer and commissioner insist that the shoot will end in just a few minutes. They simply cannot go into overtime for the crew – it would mean thousands and thousands of dollars to go even ten minutes into the next hour. Unless, MA will sign the overage himself. MA will not, but MA will insist the shoot go on.

The producer ignores the craziness, not wanting to kill the project by spending money on OT they don't have. The producer goes to call the wrap and – MA snaps. MA grabs the producer by the arm and makes the kind of violent threats that get people arrested. Seriously, violence is threatened and there are big dudes standing behind MA – making it even more scary. This is well beyond MA being “difficult” – this is criminal. The threats are specific and believable – a very tense and scary moment. MA is right up in the producer's face, telling them that the shoot has to go longer. The producer is scared and doesn’t know what to do. MA has a media-friendly image, but there have also been gun charges and beatings in the past.

Finally some of MA’s reasonable friends get MA to chill out and MA retreats to the RV. The producer and director quickly get a few shots that might satisfy MA, and then they hurry into a production van and get the hell out of there. Sure, they went into over-time – but they feel lucky they escaped with their lives.

Oh, did I mention the producer is a woman? Don’t know why, but that seems to make the threats of MA even more despicable.

Weeks later, the overages for the over-time all get paid promptly, for once. This is the first time in memory that MA’s label has not fought and delayed every payment. The producer finds out that the commissioner hustled all the payments through to keep a lid on MA’s threatening behavior. For once, MA does not have endless notes on the edit.

The video gets edited and delivered. Music television plays it exactly twice.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Big Eyes

Driving down the coastal highway in Baja, south of Tijuana, I noticed two things – one, a preponderance of places to buy enormous ceramics that would crowd my vehicle for the rest of the trip and two, unfinished construction. I am not talking about a house that is almost done or a store that is party way complete. All along the main highway past Ensenada and Rosarita there are massive concrete and rebar first floors and foundations that look abandoned. Many of these construction sites look to have been deserted for years and years, their incomplete arches and cement columns hinting at the soaring vision that went into the planning stage but not the financing of the project. These are not single family homes, someone clearly spent big bucks on what they have so far – but then ran out of steam.

This applies to music videos how? Like this. There are quite a few clips out there where the director (and others involved) clearly had dreams bigger than their budget. I see too many videos where something starts and is never completed. That could be a conceptual thing – like a “one take” video where they abandon the “one-take-ness” part way through as they realized how boring it is – or a budgetary thing where the director wishes he could have lots of cool FX but ends up with a few mediocre comp shots.

Dreaming is cool. Take a big sheet of paper and sketch out all those dreams. Brainstorm and draw some shit up. Some of it will be good, some not so much – it doesn’t matter during the dreaming stage. But once you start expecting other people to pay attention (or money) – you better have something coherent and attention worthy.

Dreaming is fun, watching someone else dream is less so. Watching a video with art-direction that cost $37 but is supposed to be a "castle" or something else it obviously isn't is the least fun of all. Whose fault is it that the $37 set didn't "read" on camera? Not the art department's.

The web (on places like antville) are filled with odd-ball videos with tons of effects that just look like crap. Lots of commenters applaud the effort and balls of directors that try to do things they clearly cannot actually do. Maybe I am just too linear to “get it” but why put something in your video you just can’t do. As Yoda said, “Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.”A guy trying to play the piano and failing is not “a guy almost playing piano” it is “a lot of annoying noise.” A director trying some camera angle, lighting technique or post effect that he doesn’t have the budget or skill to accomplish is not noble, he is simply boring to watch.

Trying new things is great and the only way to grow as any kind of artist. But music videos are also a craft and the client (label, artist) are gonna expect more than half the first floor of a palace – they are gonna expect the dream you sold them on with the treatment. Clients won't grade on a curve or give a mark for "effort."

The audience deserves more than half-baked, quarter-planned effort and if we expect them to watch, we better deliver it to them. They don’t give a shit if the 22 seconds of rendering that did get completed will “look good on your reel” if the rest of the video has rebar sticking out the top and smells of damp concrete.

UPDATE: A couple of commenters have said things that makes me think that I didn’t really get my point across. So, I’m going to try again.

I am NOT saying that directors need to play it safe or they should limit themselves creatively. I AM saying directors need to actually accomplish what they set out to do.

Metaphor alert. It is like those automobile design contests where they get design students to dream up new car ideas and the fresh, young designers come back with wild concept drawing of six-wheeled cars that go under water or burn old coffee grounds for fuel. As drawing and ideas, those concepts are all great. But a finished music video for a real band with a real career is the NEXT stage of that car-design competition – where the student has to actually build the car. If the car doesn’t drive or it bursts into flames or it only starts half the time, then it is a piss poor car – no matter how cool or new the design ideas are. No one who has to drive the non-moving six-wheeled coffee ground car as part of their actual life is going to say – “Sure, I am stuck here in my driveway, but this is a genius idea and I am so happy I have an outside the box kind of vehicle.”

Music videos are not about ideas – they are about music videos. Drawing an un-build-able blueprint doesn’t make you an artist, it makes you a fraud. The finished product is what matters.

Friday, February 16, 2007

All Your Bases Are Belong To Beyonce

Beyonce is everywhere. From the cover of Sports Illustrated’s no-longer-controversial swimsuit issue to the red carpet of whatever awards show is shutting her out this time. Miss B is gorgeous and talented and every-fucking-where. And it looks like she is blowing it.

Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” has topped the singles charts since the last BSB record (or so it seems) – so how can I say she is blowing it? She is fixing to marry Hova, right?

This piece was on Idolator Thursday, referencing how Beyonce’s dad, Matthew Knowles (manager of both Kelly and Beyonce) has decided to push back the release of Kelly’s new CD.

Now Kelly's album is once again being pushed back but this time to make room for the re-release of Solange's "Solo Star"

For Solange?!? Ouch! That lets Kelly know where she ranks.

This is just a rumor, but what a juicy one. I have heard that Kelly’s first single (with guest rapper Eve) has gone out to video directors for treatments – so Kelly’s album might be out real soon. On the other hand, Matthew and his Sanctuary Urban Records (hey, they manage the fat guy from D12) have pushed Kelly’s record before, but at least then it was for big sister B.

Maybe Beyonce and her father are pushing around the career of Kelly Rowland, but how is that “blowing it?” Well this latest “scheduling change” is just the latest in a line of decisions Sanctuary has made to “help” Beyonce stay on top – but this maneuvering might end up burning out the public’s interest in their star talent and sour the rest of the entertainment industry on working with them.

No one in Hollywood cares if the Knowles’s screw with one of B’s back-up singers, but movie folks definitely care if they mess up the careful marketing plans of major motion pictures. As of mid-February, Dreamgirls has still not broken $100mil in domestic BO. It was a pricey film to make and I imagine this financial performance is considered a disappointment.

The original plan was for Beyonce’s album to come out in March/April of ‘07 – well AFTER the release of Dreamgirls. That would have left the Autumnal months of 2006 as a Beyonce-free zone, whetting everyone’s appetite for B’s December appearances to promote Dreamgirls and the soundtrack of same. By the time the video for “Listen” came out in early December – viewers had already seen three Beyonce videos from her “B’Day” CD in the past 2 and a half months. Instead of eager, I bet most audience were burned out on B.

Dreamworks and Paramount were NOT happy that they were getting much, much less mileage out of the song and video from the movie since TV and radio were already saturated with Beyonce. There were some rumors of complaints from movie types, but no one came out to directly criticize the decision to move up the “B’day” release. Imagine how much more excited B’s fans would have been to see the clip for “Listen” if they had not already seen the videos for “Crazy in Love II”, “That Weird Basic Instinct Video” and “The One Beyonce Song Everyone Likes” so recently.

One of the main reasons a movie studio casts any star in a film is for promotional purposes. Brad Pitt does the cover of Vanity Fair and Leno to promote his new movie. That is part of why he gets paid millions to be in movies – because he gets the word out better than someone who is a good actor (Geoffrey Rush) but people don’t care about. The producers of Dreamgirls must have thought they were getting the same thing when they signed Beyonce. “She can sing like crazy AND she will get us major press.” Then she goes out and over-exposes herself on every TV show in the fall and much of that promotional value Dreamworks/Par paid for is lost by the time December rolls around.

It is it any wonder that the producers started talking about and hyping Jennifer Hudson so much? I bet that there were conversations at 5555 Melrose about pushing the “other” Dreamgirl to the forefront because of Beyonce’s lessened promotional value AND to punish her and her father for their hubris.

By releasing her own album in September 2006, Beyonce hurt her own value to the producers of her star-making movie “debut”, she made her cameos on Jay-Z’s record less interesting, she got less out of Jay’s appearance on her own “Déjà Vu” single, AND she messed with her “best friend” Kelly’s release date once again. Beyonce and Matthew just couldn’t wait and they choked the marketplace with too much of the one thing the should be keeping special – Beyonce. Sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.

Going forward, Beyonce will still be famous. She will sell many records over her long career. She will still be a great singer and a gorgeous young woman. She will still be way cooler than me. But, what Beyonce seems to really want is to be a movie star and after crossing up the promotion for a big-time holiday film, Beyonce will probably find it harder and harder to get what she wants out of the studios.

And now Beyonce is shooting a slew of new videos to create a multi-media re-release of “B’Day.” Talk about coming on strong. I’m gonna be seeing more of her than I do of my real-life girl. It might be time for an intervention. “Beyonce, you are hot and all, but I need my space. Let’s talk again at the end of the summer, okay?”

Monday, February 12, 2007

Viral Video Infection

Several commenters here and on antville took me to task for not acknowledging the power YouTube’s “viral video” effect. It is true I neglected to include the upside of video sharing in the last post. I was lazy, the post was already long and I believe viral videos are much, MUCH less infecting than many people believe.

When Gutenberg invented the printing press and movable type – it was decades before someone came up with the idea for page numbers, so those original, un-page numbered books were far less useful than they would be once “book OS technology” had the kinks worked out. Today, we are in that “no page numbers yet” stage for the internet. The technology exists, but the way it will REALLY be used once it becomes fully integrated into our lives has not yet been established. In 2007, the intratubes (and viral video) are still in their pre-adolescent stages and there is no way to know exactly how they will turn out.

Reason #1 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:They have not made anyone on the music-making end of things much money as of yet. The YouTube guys are billionaires, but that hasn’t helped Weird Al make any scratch off of “White and Nerdy” despite the fact that the web clip has been watched more than 6 million times. Clicks are NOT cash. Attention does not pay the bills. (Hey, I love it when my blog gets an extra hundred hits, but I can’t use that to pay my rent, unless my landlord starts taking GoogleAd Sense.)

Part of this is on the music industry. Why can’t record companies turn people sharing video clips into a living for recording artists? Because labels are run in old fashioned ways by old fashioned people. Maybe someone will turn this around, but that looks to be a long ways off.

Reason #2 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:Even hyper-successful viral videos have made little to no impact at retail. OkGo is the best example to date of the positive power of viral videos and even they have not been all that successful. Here is a blurb from their (press release-ish) wikipedia page:

"After the band's performance at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, their album moved up to #2 on the ITunes Music Store album sales charts (as of September 3, 2006). Their album sold 8,250 units in the following week, a 95% increase over the prior week, rocketing from #87 to #69 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the highest position ever achieved by any OK Go album to date."

Wow, I would not call moving from 87 to 69 “rocketing,” especially following an appearance on the VMA show. This is NOT all that impressive to me – or the record labels, either, I would imagine. These numbers are very good for a small indie band and all that, but if this the BEST case one can make for viral video it is not a very strong case at all.

The treadmills video has been watched over 11 million times and OkGo even won the Grammy for video of the year (as well they should have, IMO) so they have gotten lots of attention – too bad more people didn’t actually pay for the music. This is not a rip on OkGo – but rather pointing out that the concept of viral videos, even in the best of best of best case scenarios – has a long way to go. OkGo created something great (along with a far better written and far more market friendly song than most viral visds are attached to) that points the way to where the industry might/should/will go in the future. But Ben Franklin and his kite getting over with the key, is still a long way from people having electric bug-zappers on their patios.

Many, many bands have tried to get the same viral video buzz and only OkGo has turned their clip into mainstream attention. Bands expecting YouToogle to make them stars is like school kids expecting that they will be NBA/NFL stars when they grow up. It might actually happen to a tiny handful of athletic hopefuls, but the percentages are not in the kid’s favor. AND (to extend the metaphor oven further) the OkGo example shows that the rare kid that does make the pros will spend his time on the bench earning the league minimum salary. Kids are better off studying for a career other than sports if they want to stay above the poverty line and bands are better off trying to get signed to a major label and go about things the more “traditional” route if they wanna stay above the poverty line.

The viral video might (and I stress "might") help out a baby band that few have heard of, but it holds almost no value for an established band or artist - like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance or Ludacris. The music industry, as currently constructed, is set up to make money off the later kind of artists - not the unknowns. To the music industry, viral video looks like something that "helps panda bears manage their stock portfolio" - a solution to a problem they don't know or care about. The music industry is definitely changing, and possibly to something where pandas need to check their mutual funds, but I doubt viral videos will still be the rage when that happens.

Reason #3 why I largely dismiss the power of viral videos:Because people on the internet think it is a sure thing. When everyone tells me something is a can’t miss deal, (eToys, anyone?) I get very suspicious.

"Viral video" is the kind of catch-phrase that jumps into marketing vocabularies - ala synergy, click-through, tweens and so on. There is certainly some value in all these concepts, but when they become "hot" - they get over-used and beaten into the ground in the rush to apply their new media-ness to any and every situation. Remember when CD-ROMs and those added value CDs were going to change the record retail game? Maybe viral video will be the thing to make that change, but so far, I see zero signs that it has happened.

Friday, February 09, 2007

The Choir

The way music videos are seen by people (a topic endlessly discussedhere) today doesn’t just change the way labels/prod cos/directors profit from them – it changes what music videos do.

Obviously, music video discussion sites like this one, SRO or antville are not for the casual fan. If you are interested in what other commenters think of the long-awaited Grizzly video, whether a thirty year old film is a music video, or what technique was used on some motion control shot, you are not a normal music video consumer. And videos on the web are perfect for you.

The Intratubes are great if you want to find a particular video from the past or, a new clip that hasn’t really hit TV yet (onsmash is great for urban new-ness), or a video that will never, ever get on television. But the web is NOT good for introducing viewers to new artists. Web videos don’t reach new record buyers, but Disney Channel does.

If you are YouToogling “LCD Soundsystem” you have already purchased or downloaded all the music of theirs you care to have. If you sought out a particular file out of the billions on the world wide web, you are already a fan and watching the video on-line has no chance of turning into more sales for the musicians involved (which was the original goal of MVs, by the way).

The reason radio did (does?) rule is because it reaches new ears. MTV (back in the good ole days) did the same – sending out music that the audience may not have heard in the hopes of creating new fans. On radio/music television people can stumble across something they haven’t heard before and that is how an industry expands.

If anyone is watching a video on the band’s site, they are not exactly new fans. And that seems to be the way 85% of videos are viewed these days – dialed up by the folks that already know about the music and the artist. Like a politician making a dynamic speech in his home district, the impression might be strong but it means nothing – since the audience is already on board.

Some videos have gotten a lot of heat in the video dork community of which I am a member. The whole Death Cab for Cutie makes a bazillion $353.28 videos thing was a big story on antville and the like but very few people bought that album. The fact that all us insiders heard about the videos or watched them all a dozen times and commented on which one was best means about nothing to record labels that are busy trying to not go under or decide what the budget for the next video should be.

Music videos have become more and more like the VW keychain that Volkswagen dealers mail out to people who have just bought a new Jetta. The keychain is cool, but it is rewarding existing fans – not building new ones. No matter how cool that keychain is, it can’t convince your neighbor, or the guy across town who has never seen it, that he too, should look into buying a VW.

I love music videos and I think that they can connect audiences with artists in ways that almost nothing else can. I just wish it didn’t feel so much we are preaching to the choir.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The King is Dead ...

The changes in the music video world are driven, largely, by record labels. Labels are consolidating and closing up at an alarming pace. When Tower Records goes under – you know things aren’t going well. But I would say that the softening/collapse/death of retail is still not the main reason for the shifting world of music video.

The changes in music television are, in my opinion, responsible for labels deciding to spend less on music video even faster than MC Hammer cut back on his race-horse purchases once the bubble burst.

But these changes are not new. I wrote about MTV not airing videos way back when and Video Static did it even earlier. I found an intriguing bit on altmusictv about the same issue. The post lists the weekday MTV schedule from February 1998 and compares it to 2007’s reality TV fest:

“Now, I remember back in the late '90s, people were already saying that MTV had lost its way, but in retrospect, it seems almost like bliss.”

Read the full list on altmusictv and realize how much music actually aired then.

Who could resist Ananda? Well, most people. MTV stopped showing videos because you stopped watching them. MTV needed to draw more eyeballs and every game show and sports special MTV ran got much better ratings than the endless wave of videos that MTV normally ran. So they changed what they normally ran. And this happened longer ago than you think, MTV first ran the game show, Remote Control, in 1987.

The people at MTV would have been fools to ignore the data, so music videos got less airtime (while still remaining the "face" of the franchise) and reality TV got more. Even in MTV's earliest stages – where the viewer ship was low, but the channel was at it’s most influential – straight-up, un-cut videos have never drawn lots of viewers. One music video insider is quoted as saying, “video hours are always pathetically rated.” Even with Ananda.

There are plenty of new outlets for music videos, but the raw power of videos came largely from the unified group of eyeballs that saw them. That pool of viewers grows larger, but ever more diluted over the intrawebs and all the other new technology.

I have the sneaking suspicion that, someday music video types will look back on the “glory days” of Cribs and Punk’d with the warm, yet bittersweet joy of a 35 year-old recalling when grunge was cool and they had all their hair.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Opposite world

This blog is rarely about me reviewing videos - both since there are many other sites that do that and since I find that stuff kind of beside the point. I enjoy the machinations, selling strategies, whys and wherefores behind the scenes far more fascinating than what usually ends up on your Viacom-owned video outlet.

But, someone turned me on to a very literate blog that is all about the poetry and art of music videos. Check out Obtusity for deep thoughts on clips like the new Game/Kanye joint:

Kanye flows, "the only dream of a ghetto prom queen was to maybe make it to the screen," and isn't that exactly the same dream of ghetto prom kings?

Obtusity also has a sharp piece over on videostatic about a video I might have just dismissed as navel-gazing drivel. Now I know it has mythological references. My brain is tired.

Anyway, check it out. It seems like a bizarro-world version of 30frames.